JAPAN FIRES THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL LASER

Researchers at Osaka University are claiming to have fired the most powerful laser in the world. The 2-petawatt (two quadrillion watt) pulse lasted just one picosecond (a trillionth of a second).

For a rough comparison, in 2013, a 50 kilowatt (50,000 watt) laser shot down a drone two kilometers away.

Osaka's mega-powerful laser is called LFEX, or Laser for Fast Ignition Experiments, and measures more than 300 feet long.

While two petawatts is a formidable amount of power, the idea of a petawatt laser isn’t new. The United States has a few of their own, notably a one-petawatt laser at the University of Texas at Austin .... http://www.popsci.com